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Thursday, 7 November 2013

No Survivors...

As soon as I set eyes on the Wargames Factory kit Apocalypse Survivors: The Men the blatant potential for contemporary zombie fodder was irresistible.

You get 30 minis per box, 10 per sprue including 8 one part torso/legs, 1 leg with separate torso and a one part juvenile torso/legs (addressing a definite gap in the undead market).

The combined stances of the torsos and legs cover a broad range of dynamics to accommodate the wielding of cricket bats and assault rifles. These same stances out of context provide some fabulous and unique zombie gaits with the simple addition of suitable arms (Studio Miniatures provide an excellent match and fit) and heads (the Mantic ones are pretty much spot on). The Puppets War and MaxMini heads really bring out the zombie potential of this kit; the Rastafarian heads by Basiks also make for pretty menacing undead.
Oddly enough Basiks have zombified versions of these heads but they seem a little 'forced', I'll probably pick some up though.
There's a good variety of body shapes and the clothing gives a solid cross section of contemporary fashion from professional to sports/casual. The sculpts are fantastic with convincing posing and crisp detail, certainly a quantum leap from their zombies kit. In fact I would say that this kit (in combination with Studio Mini's arms and your zombie heads of choice) arguably produces some of the best modern zombies available on the market!! Oh the irony...

The only issue for me were the arms. They are very smooth skinned and sculpted in specific open handed poses that don't immediately lend themselves to a convincing zombification. The arms from the Studio Minis zombies are an excellent match however and all my spares got munched by this kit!

These guys were a joy to put together, a minimum of flash, nice big flat joints for gluing / pinning and good big flat feet that will make basing a breeze. Perfect zombie fodder.

As a bonus the weapons sprue provides an arsenal of modern weaponry that can be left strewn on bases or assembled into abandoned caches. After all, there are no survivors...

Now to pick up some 'Apocalypse Survivors: The Women' to help level out the gender inequality in the horde so far. Hopefully they don't all have the 'just stepped out of the salon' look to them that curses the otherwise excellent Zombie Vixens!! I'm guessing that arms will be a problem here too, maybe the Zombie Vixens will lend a hand...

4 comments:

Thanks Simon :) Scale wise this kit's in the sweet spot for after market zombie heads. Seeing them now through a macro lens I probably should have trimmed back the shoulders a touch on the Studio Minis arms for a less 'disjointed' look. Whatever.... 'they're zombies'!

Cheers Zabadak! :) These are certainly my favorites so far. It seems the head of a miniature determines its identity and there are some excellent zombie heads out there. The body either simply carries the head (Studio Minis & Wargames Factory zombies) or adds to the identity through pose and detailing (GW & Mantic). The Apocalypse Survivors kit's a winner as the poses are so varied and dynamic. Wargames Factory should bring out an add on of zed heads and arms for plug and play zombies!